


The Hat Trick Job

by zovinar



Category: Leverage, Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Phantom Thief (Persona 5), Attempted Murder, Cahoots, Chaos, Crime, Crossover, Gen, Heist, Humor, Mistaken Identity, Team Bonding, be gay do crimes, number neighbor au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 04:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21350344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zovinar/pseuds/zovinar
Summary: “Hey listen, do you think you could come to the station and bail me out?”Silence. Then—“Whois this.”
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist, Kurusu Akira & Sakura Futaba
Comments: 15
Kudos: 112





	The Hat Trick Job

**Author's Note:**

> *mic drops first leverage crossover au*  
inspired by [this tweet](https://twitter.com/jenchuriki/status/1158465916621004800)!

“Hey listen, I know this is sorta out of the blue, but do you think you could come down to the station and post bail for me? It’ll be worth your while, promise.”

Silence echoing down the phone line is his only answer at first. 

Then

“_Who_ is this.”

“Uh.” Oh man, if Futaba knew he was doing this she’d totally kill him. Alright not really, but she’d def let him stew in holding for twice as long before she set up his getaway—it’s just that Navi didn’t know that he was going out and Oracle has stuff to do. Zero doubts she’ll pick up something with her web crawlers before they run his prints or anything, but Futaba is also a little shit in the way of all younger siblings and wouldn’t hesitate to lock things up and get him an overnight stay.

Okay. Showtime.

“Heeey there neighbor, I was just w—”

“I live in a penthouse suite, I don’t have neighbors.”

Um, wow. “You have a phone though.”

“What does that even… Oh god, is this because of that awful number neighbor meme?”

“Oh c’mon. You’ll get a lot of personal growth.”

“Just, stop talking please. I—” The voice goes muffled, hand over the receiver? _“Yes, I’m sorry. This is from an internal line then? Oh. Yes. Yes, I see, my thanks.”_ A delicate sigh. “Just stay put. I’ll be down in a bit, I suppose.” 

The line goes dead.

Well.

That isn’t ominous or anything.

§

“Amamiya,” calls the officer stationed outside the room as he cracks the door wide enough to lean in. “The detective’s here for you, “C’mon out.”

Worrisome, but right now Interpol’s the only one he should be actively keeping an eye out for. Joker kicking up a fuss in Madrid was good for that at least.

“Oh and…sorry,” the officer says the officer as Akira stands to leave, looking a bit abashed. “About the misunderstanding, I mean.”

Shit, whoever this is has _pull_. But Akira just nods politely as he passes with a quiet, “not a problem.” 

“Ah, Ren-san, good.” The pleasant looking man in the light tan blazer waiting outside shifts his attaché to one gloved hand and waves towards the entrance with the other. “I’ve already collected your effects so we can be on our way. We wouldn’t want to be late now, would we?”

“Not entirely my fault this time,” Akira murmurs as he follows after him, playing along. “Kind of overkill anyway.”

“Well,” says the detective, looking chagrined, “because of Shido’s sponsorship, I’ve found the force can be a bit forward about entertaining his wishes at times. Actually, it is a tad amusing imagining his face. You probably ruined his lunch, trespassing as you were.” He lets out a light chuckle before his eyes go slightly wistful. “Not that I can entirely blame you, his gardens are beautiful this time of year. I myself would most likely take lunch there as well if I was able.”

Fuck, Shido has a garden? First Akira’s heard of it. “Yeah,” he says, mouth going a bit dry. “Hope he pays his gardener well, the flowers were really pretty.”

“Aren’t they?” The detective smiles as he holds open the door to the building and ushers Akira out. “The roses seem practically out of a fairy tale. Were you perhaps there with hopes to pick one for a beloved?”

“Maybe.”

“Haha, well your secret’s safe with me.” The detective shoots a smile over his shoulder before turning down a side street. “This way.”

Akira cases him as he follows. He can’t see any detective earning enough for a penthouse, but this guy looks poised enough to have some sort of sway over things. He also doesn’t look sorta raggedy the way a lot of detectives get—the guy’s makeup is perfect, understated just enough to pass notice, but it's also on top of what must be really good skin already which means he has time to take care of himself. The hair is a little long but its artful tousled look also gives him a bit of an innocent, boyish charm which probably can’t hurt in questioning witnesses.

The only thing that doesn’t say ‘detective’ is the attaché. Gloves make sense actually, the guy probably has to handle a lot of unpleasant things when he’s investigating and some preemption on ruining a crime scene with fingerprints can’t hurt. The palm of it when Akira caught sight was interesting too: the synthetic leather is for show, he thinks he saw grip pads under the fingers, looked like the fingertips might’ve been capacitive too.

The attaché though, it’s a little out of place. Too slim to carry much and too clunky if he needs to fish anything out fast, especially for a guy who carries himself with a sort of elegant efficiency. But Akira can pick up the faint impressions of what looks like a cellphone and wallet in his breast pocket and…what might be a shoulder holster tucked under his jacket, damn.

The way he just went along with things was a little weird but maybe he just really needs some good karma.

“Here you are then,” the detective stops when they get a few blocks from the police station. “Try and avoid needlessly antagonizing any more incredibly wealthy, influential, power hungry men, hm? Innocent as though it seemed.”

…Wow. “I’ll try.” He accepts his small shoulder bag back from the man. “Thanks for this, didn’t know you’d be…you know. I owe you one.” 

The detective covers his little laugh with a hand as his eyes crinkle in amusement. “I’d say don’t mention it but I find myself the type to make use of such things, Amamiya Ren. Best keep this in mind, hm?” He smiles indulgently and delicately hands Akira a business card with a wink. “Well then, I can’t say it was a pleasure meeting you. Please never contact me again.”

Akira stares at the detective as the man turns back to the station before his eyes drop to the card in his hand.

_‘Detective Liaison Akechi Goro,’_ reads the crisp card in a bold yet poised script.

Huh. Wow.

He’ll hang on to this, for Futaba at least.

* * *

“Aki I _told_ you going in without any backup was a shit idea. You’re so lucky you were just doing a plainclothes scoop! If you’d had your gear on you when you got caught…”

Akira just gives Futaba a cocky smile from where he’s oh so casually lounging in the doorway “Well. If I’d had my gear, I wouldn’t’ve gotten caught.”

Futaba sticks her tongue out at him.

Yusuke, as always, ignores them. His current, ah, _master copy_ is coming along nicely, a couple more days and they can swap it out with the original hanging in Shido’s office. Have that one “resurface” in a collection closer to where it belongs and Shido’ll be in a load of trouble. Or at least, even more of a load of trouble after everything else they’ve got planned for him.

The forgery is perfect, Yusuke learned even that from the best after all. They hadn’t gone into that mess with Madarame meaning to also ruin Yusuke’s name for the art world as well, but even back then Yusuke was half into the black market end of the fine art community already and absolutely miserable.

Now he mostly stays with Futaba and her quite literal unlimited supply of credit cards and hacked bank accounts, so at least he isn’t fucking starving anymore.

And Fox always likes letting loose every so often to Banksy up a public venue. Or the houses of well deserving corrupt individuals who deserve to sweat at both the limitless property destruction and very implicit message, when he’s not bringing Futaba’s fake documents to unbelievable life anyway. 

“What’s our status on intel?” Akira asks as he drops his bag on the counter and grabs a bottle of water before ambling over to the corner of the apartment covered in tech.

Futaba slumps a bit. “Still chugging away.”

«Oh!» The server on the table next to her lights up, the AI’s voice starting with a crackle as MONA gets their attention.

“Omg Mona, did you finally get a hit?”

«Lady Ann’s photos in her new her new tweet are so beautiful…»

“Jeeeeez,” Futaba wheezes out a sigh. “Aren’t you supposed to be cracking Shido’s security?

“No pull them up,” says Akira as he leans over Futaba. “Is Shiho there too? I wanna see how’s Ryuji’s rehab going.”

«Dunno Joker! He’s not there.»

Futaba elbows him in the stomach. “Yeah he’s prob still in bed.”

“That is in fact what happens when one does get shot,” Yusuke comments idly. “You typically find yourself regulated to bed rest.”

Akira sighs as he throws himself on the couch, Morgana leaping up onto him to demand pets.

«Hey guys!» 

“Oh jeez do you _finally_ have the guard schedules yet? Or is it just another of Panther’s selfies.”

“Yeah Mona,” Akira teases the AI, “I need you guys to scope this out pretty good if I don’t wanna end up in my own bed next to Ryuji.”

«On it Joker! I’m sending you one of Shiho’s reports I just got, but I’ve got your back» 

“Still…” Futaba sighs, stretching her arms then lacing her fingers to crack her knuckles. “This setup’s so good. Half expecting someone to scoop us—like Crow or something, this is so up their alley, right?” 

Akira sits up so fast Morgana spills right out of his lap. 

“Crow?”

“Omg Aki, you always get so excited over this guy. But yeah? Shido’s sooo their type of mark.”

“C’mon, you know basically none of those are confirms.”

Futaba hunches over her keyboard again. “Ugh, I guess. They’re a tricky bitch.”

“Crow?” Yusuke peers around his canvas. Looks like they finally managed to be more interesting than watching paint dry. “Whoever might that be?”

“Omg Inari, Crow is like a con-man cryptid or something?” 

“They’re a super high level infiltration grifter with essentially no call-sign or signature except that when they walk away they leave everything on the edge of a crash and burn and with no one knowing who was pulling the strings for the mess.”

“Like, we think Crow was there ‘n playing their marks like the chumps they are, but after things go to shit no one can backtrack to suss out who they were at least _pretending_ to be.” 

It’s the complete opposite of a Joker con, who always leaves a calling card and has the habit of offering cheery winks and blown kisses to every security camera that catches him on the way out. Joker always makes a production out of the whole mess even though his other signature is to leave no trace of his shenanigans, leaving targets scrambling to figure out what he was actually up to and the rest of the team to work their parts while everyone chases after Joker’s coattails.

There aren’t even rumors of him running with a crew other than the basic backup of Navi and MONA in his ear. Even then there’s only a tenuous connection from Joker to aliBABA’s criminal network and none between him and international information broker Oracle. There are whispers of an occasional showing of sometimes vigilante enforcer Queen taking advantage after a Joker clusterfuck to nail some baddies, or a sighting of takedown team Skull and Panther, but it’s normal to see crossovers of different players during or after a big con. Almost like how so many of Crow’s targets end up getting taken out by their unhappy employers after the fact.

Their supposed targets anyway.

“How is the community even certain Crow exists?”

Akira cracks a wrist and shrugs. “They’re pinned for sure for one major takedown—”

“There’s one, _one_ legit only one ever, audio record of their voice, and it’s from a veeeeeery specific job.”

“You remember that huge human trafficking ring that got busted a while back? We think that was them, probably from early to mid-career. It’s the only evidence that was ever found, but the recording’s from that.”

“Yeah,” smirks Futaba, “and Joker’s got a _crush_ on it.”

“Wha— I mean, they’re good at what they do! And the audio’s iconic, c’mon ‘Taba.”

“You did vocal training with the damn recording Aki, it’s literally on _all your devices_.”

“S-so?” Can they really blame him? Crow has a voice like honey and _sin_ and yeah he won’t deny using it to practice. More than one person has been swindled stupid by the dark promises Joker’s whispered in their ears, but Akira can’t quite pull off the level of cloying innocence that Crow uses to balance out the poisonous edge in their voice. 

(“You know, I’m not in the habit of showing my hand in these things but, well. You can’t blame me for being proud of my work here, hm? You may call me _Crow_ and I must say, it has been quite a pleasure.”)

Futaba waves at her laptop. “Anyway, we think they play deep cover agents a lot to get info and backup from various law enforcement agencies, and those guys do a cleanup themselves which makes it even to suss ‘em out, but that’s a huge guess too ‘cuz like I said, only one confirm. The SIU purge though, Karasu remember? We think that was Crow. That spike and massive infodump combo was beautiful, totally sabotaged the intelligence archives of the SIU. Even if they know the person who’s supposed to’ve done it is Karasu, there’s literally no evidence left, just what’s left of the program and boy howdy is it something.” 

“I still can’t believe even you couldn’t get a read on it.”

“Aki it was _weird_. The program had fingerprints from half the hacker community all over but no one could figure out who assembled the damn thing so they could track it down to a source—or even take a stab at what Karasu was up to! _And_ the code was launched from the SIU’s own servers so it was toats an inside job.” Futaba spins in her chair. “Some of my work was in it too, along with a chunk of AIGIS code, and I saw some that I think was from one of Fuuka’s old commissions??”

«Oh! It had some of my tags too!» MONA chimes in.

“Yeah, shit was wild.” Futaba sighs, slumping back in her chair. “If we _could_ get an ID and track them down, they could be a _huge_ help on this job. _But.”_

“But?”

“But,” Akira says to Yusuke with a wry grin, “Crow’s a slippery bitch.”

“It’s not like it really matters, at this point anyone edging in on our job’s just gonna throw a wrench into shit,” Futaba grumbles. “Can you imagine the rep I’d get if I ID’d Crow though?”

Yusuke gives her a disgusted look. “Keep dreaming Navi.”

«Hey! Guys I got your schematics»

“Ahhhh Mona-mona you’re the best!”

Joker smiles as his mental mask clicks back into place. “Good job Mona. Now, let’s get this show on the road.”

Navi cackles. “Time to steal this dirty bitch’s reputation out from under him!”

* * *

Okay.

So things don’t even have the decency to go to shit on the main heist, it’s the dry run, just swapping out the painting and getting a lay of the land.

Joker’s mask and coat are still in place, but everything from his gloves to his boots have way less flash: he’s geared up for stealth and speed today, not style. Get in, get out. Getting noticed is for next time.

So it’s of course right after he gets the frame just right back on the wall, original work rolled up in a storage tube on his back, when the guard drops from the ceiling.

One guard. _One_—and literally drops, like straight through the skylight and everything. 

Joker’s down the hall before the gun’s even fully cocked.

The guard might be fast but Joker’s _faster_, rocketing through the halls on silent feet as he looks for…

There, that vent. 

Joker slips his fingers between the grate and the wall to grab at the bottom of the opening and flips up into the vent in less than a second.

To the guard that’s just now turning the corner from the sound of it, he might as well have vanished, coattails and all. They prepped this place up good, giving Joker a lot of exits and safe rooms, so to speak.

He tries not to grin at the adrenaline rush he feels thrumming through his veins as he crawls and shimmies his way to the next floor up.

He stuffs the painting’s tube into an alcove he made in the vent yesterday. At this point it’ll just be in the way and they can collect it later, right now what he needs to do is get _out,_ out of this vent especially. It’s short enough that they’d never look for him here, but any loud sounds will compromise his access points to anyone listening in the right direction

and then

his phone

chirps.

He freezes. It’s only once, but he can practically feel it echo down the vent.

No one knows this number. No one should be calling this number, no one is supposed to _have_ this number; the only people who do are sitting in this ear. Even the rest of his Thieves have a routed number to this phone and Navi redirects those to her when he’s on the job. 

This number is for backup reasons _only_, in case she needs to message him if things go to shit and he falls out of contact. 

What the fuck.

«What the _fuck_» hisses Navi in his ear.

“I don’t—”

«Shshh! I’m deactivating it right now. What the FUCK Joker how did someone—? WHOSE fault is this, how even—!!» 

“Navi—”

«Joker shut up and get out of the damn vent!»

He hauls himself through the opening and lands in a crouch. “MONA?” he breathes.

«Yeah! If we can just lose this guy—» 

The door to the stairwell slams open behind him.

«Fuck, ahead!» Navi shouts. «Second right. Electronic door, I’ll lock it behind you!» 

Joker flies through the door as soon as the light blinks green, kicks it shut behind him, hears the lock engage— 

An _awful_ grating sound hits his ears as the guard breaks through somehow—is that a _sword??_

He hangs a hard left, through some glass doors and onto a rooftop and—

The doors he just cleared burst open. 

From behind, Akira hears the teasing drag of metal against fabric, a blade being resheathed, then a haunting click.

Safety. Off. Oh shit.

«MONA!» 

«Grabbing feeds!» 

“Turn,” coos a mechanical voice, softer than he was expecting, almost husky. “Slowly.”

Akira eases around, hands held out carefully. His eyes dart around as he does, casing the patio as much as he can before his gaze lands on— 

«Oh god is that…? Oh god oh no—Joker! You have to get out of there _now!!_» Futaba yells over the comm as Akira takes in the blue and grey muzzle-like face mask and the black bladed sword showing over the guy’s shoulder. “Joker you gotta run, that’s the Black Mask!”

Mech filtering face mask? Check. Serrated sword with no hilt and blue wrappings? Check. Custom left-hand gun? Yeeeeep, and it's pointed right at his face. Clawed tactical gloves? Mm-hm, yeah those too.

God Akira is a dead man, what the fuck’s Tokyo’s most un-infamous hitman doing here?

“Can’t Navi,” he hisses back, “not the right gear and he’s got a gun, all my routes are closed off.”

“Ah ha,” laughs the Black Mask lightly and Akira shivers. Even through the crackle of the filter his voice drips mirthful insanity. 

The only consolation Akira has right now is that he _knows_ this isn’t a hit. Black Mask, as bare as the rumors are, is known to be ruthlessly efficient for his contracts, but for the grey area stuff he’s known to…play. It doesn’t mean he isn’t a dead man though.

Still, Joker shouldn’t be anywhere near the guy’s radar. Black Mask’s signature if anything is basically _really_ high profile kills that never seem to get talked about. That takes clout, does this mean Shido—

His phone pings.

«WHAT the _fuck—_again!? _‘Made you look,’_ who—??» 

All it takes is one second of distraction for Black Mask to hit him like a tank. They tumble to the ground with one of the assassin’s knees grinding into Akira’s sternum while an armbar with his off-hand forces Akira’s head back onto the cement roof. With a pleased hum, Black Mask makes a show of swinging his other hand back and leveling his gun at Akira’s crotch.

“Ahhh…I think that favor might do quite nicely after all.” There’s a manic glee in the voice—a voice that’s familiar but just not, like the memory of a multitude of sounds overlapping. The Black Mask rips off Joker’s mask and leans down over him, knees pinning him down, still pointing the gun worryingly close to Akira’s dick. “Could this be fate?” 

He yanks off his own facemask to show the lethal smile Akira had seen in his eyes and—

It’s—

“Hello again Kurusu-kun,” purrs the Black Mask, his number neighbor, “you may call me _Crow._”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> he _doesn't_ kill him for the record, crow's just gonna swindle joker silly on that favor. anyway pL_ease_ go watch leverage it's a crime no one's done a P5 crossover befor like a legit crime they theif and they stole and they hate the 1%
> 
> shoulder holster akc is an ode to this fantastic pic:
>
>> サスペンダーに対抗してショルダーホルスターだったらしんでたって落書き [pic.twitter.com/Kz676Omunq](https://t.co/Kz676Omunq)— はしま (@hashima000) [](https://twitter.com/hashima000/status/993283467780636672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)  
[](https://twitter.com/hashima000/status/993283467780636672)
> 
> god this boy is so hot someone call the police
> 
> part 2/the epilogue will be up uh prob sooner than later but u can hmu for upd8s and other stuff [@stovinar](https://twitter.com/stovinar) on twit! :> O RITE and "[hat trick](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hat%20trick)" is bc akechi plays three roles in each of the three parts of the fic!


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